Big Picture

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H aving, over the last few months, had ample opportunity to contemplate and discuss the matter, we feel the time has come for The Baltimore Sun to take a position on what may be the most pressing issue of our time. We hereby officially oppose snow. This newspaper does not appear previously to have taken an explicit position on this or on any other major form of weather, but a search of the archives reveals a dangerous quasi-pro-snow policy. In February 2007, we noted that "maybe we wouldn't even mind one more snowfall," and in 2004, we admitted an affection for "an occasional snowman and a well-thrown snowball."

Once upon a time, the United States was the world's most powerful economic engine, a job-producing machine that propelled a broad swath of its citizens into a comfortable middle class. They bought tidy little houses they could afford. They bought big, shiny Chevrolets and Fords with bench seats. They used their health insurance to pay for the occasional tonsillectomy or appendectomy. They retired with pensions generous enough to purchase nice gifts for the grandkids. That period of broad prosperity was relatively short, no more than 50 years after the end of World War II, but it looms large in the national psyche, supplying the cultural icons and touchstones that furnish the "American dream."

When junior attackman Mike Leveille arrived at Syracuse in fall 2004, the Orange was coming off of its third NCAA title in the previous five seasons. The school had won eight national championships dating back to 1983, and had been to every tournament final four since then. Little did Leveille know that he was walking into a new era of Syracuse lacrosse - an era during which the Orange has begun to slide into the ranks of the ordinary, an era during which increasing parity in the Division I game is stalking the big boys.

The Orioles tried not to make a big deal of Wei-Yin Chen's absence for nearly two months because of a strained oblique. But the Taiwanese lefty has been exceptionally consistent in his year-plus, major league career and not having him take the ball every fifth day has been a challenge - as manager Buck Showalter would say - for the Orioles. Consider that when Chen goes at least seven innings in a start - it happened nine times last year and for the second time this season Wednesday - the Orioles are 11-0.

WASHINGTON -- With only three weeks to go before Congress votes up or down on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor seems weary but determined to pull President Clinton's biggest chestnut out of the fire.Neither the pounding from anti-NAFTA forces led by organized labor preaching it will cost American jobs, nor the aftereffects of a bad fall that has kept him in a large back brace, appears to have daunted the Los Angeles lawyer and Friend of Bill who accepted what is perhaps the toughest remaining challenge on the Clinton first-year agenda.

After traveling 14 hours Monday, practicing about three hours since, and then playing with typical on-the-road caution for 83 minutes last night, Ecuador seemed unlikely to win at Memorial Stadium.But a goal off a contested breakaway that began with a long pass from just outside Ecuador's penalty area about seven minutes from the game's end gave Ecuador a 1-0 victory.From coach Steve Sampson to defenders Thomas Dooley, Robin Fraser and Martin Vasquez, the U.S. verdict was "off-side." No doubt, many in the stands saw it the same way. But referee Raul Dominguez of Texas didn't blow his whistle and his nearest assistant on the break, Ellicott City's Rob Fereday, kept his flag down.

By Lisa Goldberg and Lisa Goldberg,Special to The Sun | March 30, 2007

Jeff Antoniuk stood at the front of the cramped room. With his eyes closed, his hands glided along his tenor saxophone. He wailed and grooved before stepping aside to let the other members of his quartet, the Jazz Update, add their signatures to the song. Steve Olson was one of seven of Antoniuk's students who attended the nighttime gig at 49 West Coffeehouse, Winebar and Gallery. Olson sat near the band, his head and shoulders absently dancing to the tune. The music, he would say later, left him itching to practice his drums.

BEN CARSON, the Hopkins pediatric neuro- surgeon who takes his role as role model seriously, preaches the gospel of education, education, education, and doesn't leave a yawn in the room.He's an example of how the will to learn makes all the difference in life. Once the self-described dummy of his class back in Detroit, and not motivated to change that situation, Carson, at his mother's prodding, went on to great things and international celebrity for his accomplishments in the operating room.

Washington.-- There's a man loose here who says that in a very few years, "the District of Columbia will have the finest elementary school system in the country." He is neither a mental patient nor a politician.No subject on the American agenda produces more pessimism than public schools, and nowhere are the schools regarded more dismally than in the nation's capital. Politicians and educators discuss the situation endlessly. They agree repeatedly that it is entangled with broken homes, drugs and teen-age pregnancy, that the whole thing is an interlocking puzzle and therefore hopeless.

Not My ViewThe July 6 editorial page included a very interesting political cartoon by KAL that perfectly illustrates the double standard that the liberals in this country practice on a daily basis.In the cartoon, irate rioters in support of the flag burning amendment, school prayer amendment and the balanced budget amendment assail the Constitution.Obviously, the artist who drew the cartoon believes that these amendments assault the freedoms guaranteed to him in the Constitution. I would like to ask where is the cartoon that points out the assaults on the Second, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth and 10th amendments that have been going on for years?